Boeing's Phantom Eye drone takes off for its first autonomous flight June 1 at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. The drone achieved an altitude of 4,080 feetand a cruising altitude of 62 knots in its 28-minute flight.(Source: Boeing)

It's been my understanding (which may be wrong) that even in the case with an on-board pilot, a lot of bombing runs are done without visual inspection by the pilot. He might be targeting based on info or a signal from someone on the ground, based on pre-determined coordinates or looking through a video display to enhance light, aim, magnification, etc. - no unlike a remote pilot. The one exception is the remote pilot can have his / her mind on the mission without having the think about preserving his / her own life.

I'm waiting for the drones to start having more intelligence. Possibly needing the remote operator only to confirm the shoot orders at the last minute.

Thanks. "Reforming" is the correct term--slipped my mind. So long as natural gas (methane) is cheap, that is the preferred way to make hycrogen. Electrolys is proposed for storing solar-generated electricity, although the "round-trip" efficiency is <<50%.

I seriously doubt Hydrogen was chosen for it's "greenness". More likely for it's energy density vs weight. Greenness? just spin...

I suspect the military wants the ability to deploy a platform to a given location - quicker than "lighter than air" platforms can get there.

THIS version: obviously not related to armed drones missions - it has a very different mission (at this stage of development).

Likely would be used in conjunction with other types of drones on military operations.

Or monitoring a border for smuggling (para-military/policing operations)? Talk of using these for US / Mex border , monitoring Gulf of Mexico, etc.... With weather issues, and limited quantity, a more quickly deployed choice than Dirigibles.

I suspect that the use of hydrogen (liquid) is a result of a huge H2 plant that must have been mothballed due to the end of the shuttle program. I believe that Air Products was making the H2 for the program which needed TONS of it for every launch.

J-allen is right. The most economical way that commercial producers make hydrogen (like Air Products) is to reform it ("Reform" is the term used to describe the process) from natural gas.

The commercial producers would electrolyze it if it were cheaper to obtain it that way.

The single biggest problem with hydrogen is how to store it. Gaseous form is not nearly dense enough and liquid storage requires cryogenics. Metal hydrides will actually store hydrogen at higher density than liquid in the same size container (still seems counter intuitive to me) but the metal hydride is very heavy and adds hundreds of pounds even in an automotive application.

Let's be clear about hydrogen as a clean fuel. While the hydrogen itself is "green" the gas does not come out of a well in Texas, nor even from some country we might conquer. The only commercial sources of hydrogen are cracking a hydrocarbon, or electrolyzing water. These processes consume about 2 to 3 times as much fossil fuel energy as you ultimately get from the hydrogen. this doesn't even include the refrigeration process to liquify the hydrogen. The sole advantage of hydrogen in this aircraft is that you get more endurance per unit weight than you would with gasoline engines.

If the goal is to maintain a high altitued observation platform, might we do better by using the hydrogen as lifting gas in a dirigible?

We know the type of enemy we face now has no regard for human life, yet they say everything we hit is a childeren's hospital or an old age home. There is no winning the political war against these people.

It is up to them to protect their own civilians. They sure don't look out for ours. In fact they use their own as human shields, playing our sympathies.

@TJ: That was the point the journalist I heard was trying to make. That drones are not the simple answer for avoiding human casualty. That said, it seems that a lot of R&D dollars will go into advancing drones and in particular, their intelligence systems. Perhaps via that work and with improved global positioning and visualization technology, we can strive for better accuracy and less casualties on the ground.

Beth, in the type of combat environment that Afghanistan is, I think drones dropping bombs is a mistake. The human deciding to release the bomb bases the decision on what can be seen from a video screen, and what can be relayed via radio from ground observers.

Too many civilian casualties have occurred from this sort of air strike. Having a human on board, using eyeballs directly, may prevent civilian casualties and improve the political environment.

Drone strikes in a more direct combat environment are terrific; they keep the operators safe. In attacks close to civilians, they are not the right tool.

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